2 movies per dvd, can they really look that good?

[Roveer]

Is it really possible to encode 2 dvd movies and have them look half way decent? I know exactly how to do it technically, but what I'm talking about is when you strip that many bytes from the original, can't you really see the difference?

Example: (my Sony will give a nice bar graph of avg bitrate), so it's usually between 3k and 6k peaking out at 7k or 8k. So in order to get this movie on the same DVD with anotherone of the same quality, I'd assume that your AVG bitrate is down around 1700-2000? Max at 3000-4000?n (basically half). Doesn't this really take away from the quality of the movie?

The reason I'm asking is that My sony cx860 is a 300 disk changer with disk flipping capability. If I were to take this idea to it's fullest I could put 4 DVD movies per slot (2 per side using dual sided dvdr media) and get a total of 1,200 movies in the single player! See where I'm going! But, at what cost?

This is a very interesting prospect. I just grabbed 10 dual sided blanks to play around with this concept. I've done a few 2 disk sets (one disk on each side). Pearh Harbor comes to mind. I even created a AVI that I stick at the end of side one in DVDMaestro showing the remote control and which button to press to 'flip' the disk and continue the movie.

Roveer

[The_Flash]

You can always try robshot's method via CCE, http://www.robshot.com/ he supposedly puts 2-3 movies w/ AC3 per disc. Alternatively you could lower the resolution of your films to 352x480 and probably get more out of your bitrate without noticing too much of a difference. This may be good for especially long films you're trying to put onto one disc. Gettysburg comes to mind.

[talman]

I've used Robshots method to make 4 2-movie DVDR compilations and the quality is absolutely stunning. I've yet to get 3 movies on a single DVDR but most of the one's I've done so far are 2 hrs+

[SiC]

I've done a few myself with Robshot's method and the quality is awesome!! Since you already know how to do it, you should test it yourself. When you're encoding two 2 hour movies onto 1 DVD-R with an audio bitrate of 448kbps (5.1 Dolby Digital), the video bitrate has to be about 2000kbps. I recommend you get like 5min of a movie and encode it at this bitrate with Robshot's method to see the quality. Or if you have an FTP I can upload you a sample (20MB or so) so you can see for yourself.

[Adsol]

I would also recommend to use Robshot's method. I am surprised how good the video quality of burned DVD's using it. I've also burned a 90 and 118 min. movie on one DVD disc and the result was surprisingly good.

[talman]

Has anyone here ever experienced having to increase the average bitrate in CCE when going through the VBR pass? On the 8 movies I've done, I've never once seen the grey "bitches" that Robshot refers to. Anyone ever seem em?

[SiC]

Talman, I've seen a few "grey bitches" so I had to adjust the bitrate only in the "Local bitrate" setting to get rid of it. When you try to fit more than 4 hours of movie onto a DVD-R with 448kbps audio, you will more than likely see them.

[Roveer]

Talman:

I had a very simila experience. I never saw any 'grey bitches'. As a matter of fact, I had to lower the bitrate to even see what they looked like. I'm just amazed that the picture quality is still good.

I'm going to experiment with this some more, as per my previous post, it wouldn't hurt to QUAD my 300 disk changer!!!

Regards,

Roveer